Vespers - 14 April 2019


(The hymn used here is "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" in the Trinity Hymnal, re. ed., 457)


Come, thou fount of ev'ry blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above; praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, mount of God's unchanging love. We offer our lives to you, O Fount of every Blessing; and we offer all of our engagements and employments to you! We ask you to orchestrate, fund and populate all of our grateful work, including our ESL classes and relationships, Sunday School, VBS, mission trip to Anadarko, our deacons in their deaconing and elders in their eldering. We also ask you to enrich all of our generosity and giving of time and resources to Infant Crisis Center, and other service organizations. O Lord, hear our prayer.
  
Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by thy help I'm come; and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand’ring from the fold of God: he, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood. We beseech you to lift up and deliver any and all who are hurt, harassed, or in harm’s way…, that they may raise their Ebenezer memorial stones, giving you perpetual praise that ‘hither by thy help I’m come.” And, O gracious seeker, it is our heart’s desire to see these we are about to mention before you, these who are “strangers, wand’ring from the fold of God” to find you rescuing them from danger, interposing your precious blood…  O Lord, hear our prayer.

 O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be; let that grace now, like a fetter, bind my wand'ring heart to thee. Prone to wander - Lord, I feel it - prone to leave the God I love; here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. We pray for our little children, adult kids, older mothers, aged fathers, grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, sisters, brothers and all in our families… and we pray for ourselves that they and we would continue faithfully in this long obedience in the same direction, this race, looking ever and always unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; and we pray, here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. O Lord, hear our prayer.

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